Transcript of What My Father Gave Me

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I actually just this morning was telling my son about what I'm going to give him when I'm an old man. This bracelet actually, uh, this is from my grandfather. And so my great-grandmother made this for him, and she gave this to him before he went to, uh, fly planes, uh, with the Air Force in Korea. I told my son today, hey, when I'm an old guy, you're gonna get to wear that.

I can't— I can't follow that.

Take that, John!

That was our own John Bickley and Cabot Phillips discussing fatherhood. And as you may have guessed by now, Morning Wire is a family show. We love moms and dads, and we like to celebrate them when we have an opportunity. And our producer Justice had a fun idea that this year for Father's Day, we could have a candid conversation with two of your favorite dads from this show to discuss their experiences with fatherhood and maybe share some nuggets of wisdom as well. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley and Wired In host Cabot Phillips, and this is a special Father's Day episode of Morning Wire.

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So the transition to parenthood is really strange and it can take a while to kind of gel into your new identity as a parent. When did you really start feeling like a dad? And is there a moment that you can point to that like kind of stands out?

Once I felt, uh, my first son kicking, um, I would like to say, oh, like the second we had the pregnancy test, it, it didn't feel real at first. The first moment that I felt my son kicking, was this moment of, oh my goodness, it was like real. Oh, that's a human life in there. And of course, I know life begins at conception. I know that, like, in my head, but in my heart, it was that feeling of, oh my goodness, I just felt my son. And it was this, like, beautiful mix of excitement and nervousness, but also this realization of purpose. And that was the coolest moment of just feeling my purpose now on this earth is not just to serve God and serve my wife, but to protect these kids and raise them well. And it was that moment for me.

Yeah, so true. And also it changes the way you look at your wife.

Yeah.

Where you go, oh my gosh, you're carrying this life and it's real to you. My big moment, I, guys, I hope I don't get emotional on this, but my big moment, every time I talked about this with my family, I get teary-eyed, but daughter's born, first daughter's born. She grabs onto my finger. And I— it was so surreal to me. I couldn't believe one thing that already so like sentient, so kind of aware of the surroundings, even if it's just like tactile. But that was an unbelievable moment. I'll never forget it. It happened again with my second daughter. I have two daughters. And both times was incredible. And by the way, when the second daughter was born, the— our first daughter, held her, and I couldn't— I couldn't believe what I was watching. It really was the kind of moment where you go, I think my whole life's actually been building to this. I didn't realize it. You know, I think that's— as fatherhood, your whole life's been building. Oh, so many of your desires, so many, so many of your goals actually revolve around just being a father.

Yeah. And I'm glad you brought up the shift in mindset towards your wife because I remember watching my wife go through pregnancy and feeling this awe of, wow, you're sacrificing so much, literally sacrificing your body for our family.

Yeah.

But then it magnified tenfold when she actually was going through labor. And I just remember thinking, I'll never be able to get mad at you again because of what you're going through for our family to bring this life into the world.

Um, of course that remains true.

Of course that remains true. We haven't had a single argument, uh, since our kids were born. But it definitely, it left me in awe and it made me, um, just humble and thinking, you're going through something that I never could go through. And I just felt this, this respect that I think that's the best word. I felt this new respect for all women, all moms, but especially my wife.

I have a kind of negative— okay, this is a bad way to start this, but I actually During the birth of our first child, I actually was a little mad. Okay, not at her.

That no one was giving you attention?

I did not. I was— I really was kind of freaked out. And the degree to which it freaked me out, I was kind of mad. I was like, why does everyone talk about this like this is so wonderful? There's genuine fear, you know what I mean? But by the end, it's the most beautiful thing ever. But I genuinely at some points was was freaked out and very, very much feared for her.

I feel that too. We did a home birth for our first son.

Oh my gosh.

And I remember there were a few moments thinking, was this a bad idea? Should we not have done a home birth? Ended up being a wonderful experience. But there were some moments of, yeah, I don't know if I want to have a home birth.

That sounds like a horrible idea to me.

It was great.

Horrible.

Okay, next question. The world is changing very fast, and it's really overwhelming as a parent trying to prepare your child to succeed in a future that could look very different even from what we experienced, from what our parents experienced. What are you focusing on inculcating in your children to help them thrive under those unknown or maybe unstable circumstances in the future? And is that something you think about?

Maybe I go first on this one because my daughters are older. Um, we think about this all the time. My wife and I think about this all the time. All the time. I do think one of the things that so far it feels like we've made pretty good decisions, and the decisions have basically, basically been guided by let's be more direct and honest with them about the nature of the world than maybe you kind of reflexively wanna be. Like you wanna shield them from the realities of the world. And we've done that a good bit, I'm sure, especially as they're younger, you know, when they're younger. But as they've grown, we've decided, you know what, we need to tell them about the reality of these things and not shield them from it if it comes up naturally, organically, you know. And I do feel like that's, that's been good. They both have been remarkably, uh, one of them is 13, the other one is 11, remarkably capable. So I do feel like they're inculcated against a lot of things that I was really worried about that this, at this stage, they would be vulnerable to.

Now again, you know, you have to keep, be vigilant all the time, but it has felt like honesty is best, directness, don't shield them too much. You know, you have to use your judgment all the time. But I'm glad we've done that.

Yeah, I felt, um, my kids are younger. Mine are 2 and a half and 4 months old, so I haven't had to deal with as much of that. So a lot of it right now is more conceptual for me. And I think it has changed— fatherhood has changed my, uh, my political beliefs in many ways. It's radicalized me on certain topics. It's made me think more about concrete issues in ways that not just, oh, what's, what's the best for our GDP or our immigration policy or whatever it is. It's made me realize this is literally the world my kids are going to grow up in, which is so cliché, but it's, it's cliché for a reason. Um, so it, it's definitely, I don't know, it's, it's made me think more deeply about like the issues facing our country and our world from like a tangible standpoint. I'm realizing now with our, especially with our 2 and a half year old that we're getting to the point, like the things we're doing now and the things that he is, um, experiencing are actually shaping who he's going to be in a very real way. And that feels like a heavy weight.

Um, and yeah, I mean, we're trying— the big fear for me is just technology. And I think when I, when I see the explosion of AI, it's no longer just a, wow, what a cool tool. What's that going to mean for our country? It's now, what does this mean for my kid's job prospects in the future? What does this mean for his interactions with his peers? And those are the things that I now—

We'll come back to that, by the way.

Yeah. Yeah. Screen addiction will become a major theme of every parent's life at this point.

Do either of you have any items or personal memorabilia that you've been holding on to that you dream about passing on to your child, um, that you have an interesting story behind?

I actually just this morning was telling my son about what I'm gonna give him when I'm an old man. That's so funny you asked this.

What is it?

Just this morning. This bracelet, actually. Uh, this is from my grandfather. Uh, his brother, my great uncle, was a POW at the Battle of the Bulge. And when my grandpa went to Korea, uh, my great-grandmother was terrified that he was going to be captured or go missing and that he would lose his dog tags. And so my great-grandmother made this for him. Uh, it has his name on it, Jacob Abraham Ryder. It's a little mini dog tag on this bracelet, and she gave this to him before he went to, uh, fly planes, uh, with the Air Force in Korea. And, um, What do you mean she made it? She had it made for him. And so my grandfather gave it to me just a few months before he passed. And I wear it all the time now. And I told my son today, hey, when I'm an old guy, you're going to get to wear that because he was playing with it. He was putting it on. And so that's one thing.

Yeah, I can't— I can't follow that.

Take that, John.

Okay, it is a competition and you won. No, moving on from me.

Okay, don't worry, John, you'll have an answer for the next one. Have you changed in any fundamental way since becoming a dad? So either your perspective on certain things or maybe elements of your personality, rough edges that have been smoothed, smooth edges that have become rough.

Yeah.

Being—

so this is different for you and me. I am a girl dad.

Yeah.

I love being a girl dad. I've heard other girl dads say this before. They— so this idea, like, these are the loves of my life. It's very real to me. It has changed. It has changed the way I view women in general. I view other fathers, particularly when there's a daughter involved, I understand how they feel about them and the sort of richness of the relationship. And so that's like expanded, it's expanded my world a lot. I don't think it's made me softer though. I don't think that's the case. Like I do see, I look defensively at the world. Like when we all had to live in LA for a while, I saw threats everywhere. And particularly when you're a girl dad, you really see threats, you know, like you're going to see it when the kids are young, for the boys are young. But as they get older, more and more, they need to be— they need to face threats. You know what I'm saying? It's for girls. You see all the potential ways that society threatens them. So I think that's— it's made me more vigilant. And then the, the softening part of it is, is being probably more understanding of other, other people that have daughters and, and how complex the emotions are or something when you, when you deal with that.

It has made me more of a softie. It's made me more empathetic. I did not consider myself to be an empathetic person really before becoming a parent. And fatherhood has made me completely incapable of reading news stories about children being harmed, of seeing that in movies, seeing that in TV shows. I cannot do it because it's like I'm not able to see those things or read about those things without instantly thinking, this is someone's child. And, you know, these parents love their kids just the way that I love my kids. And so it has softened my heart in that way for sure. As far as changing me, I think it's made me more chill. I've always been a pretty happy-go-lucky guy, pretty chill, but it's given me more of an ability to laugh at things that are going wrong. And my wife and I, we've had so many nights. Two nights ago, we're giving our kids a bath, and my 4-month-old just has explosive diarrhea in the bathtub. Can we say that on Morning Wire? Well, he did. He had explosive diarrhea in the bathtub, and both of our sons are in the bath, and it's going everywhere.

And our 2-year-old is laughing, thinking that it's something to play with, and he's going, ooh, playing with the water. And my wife and I just looked at each other and after the initial freakout of, okay, get them out, get the towels, everything, we just looked at each other and started laughing. And I think parenthood has a way of doing that, of helping you realize what actually matters. And it— if you get mad every time those things happen, you will always be mad. And, um, I think it's given me the ability to just have stuff brush off more quickly.

You have to be pa— you have to have a new level of patience, which is super hard for me.

Okay, so I'm going to return to a theme that we kind of talked about earlier, I'm just gonna tell you a little something that billionaire dads have been buzzing about, and I wanna get your reaction to this phenomenon that's going on and just hear what you guys think. So have either of you heard of Alpha School? So Alpha School is this AI-powered pre-K through 12th private school network. It's based in Austin. It's expensive, $40,000 a year, and the idea is they have just 2 hours of core academics a day, and they have these AI tutors teaching them things. They don't have teachers. They have these like roving adult guides that will assist them with some of their AI learning. They do for, they do that for 2 hours in the morning, and then the rest of the day they have hands-on workshops in real life fields.

Wait, hold on. So is this a physical, you're in a physical location?

Yeah. So they have like, when you're saying roaming, like they're robots roaming around?

No, no, no.

It's like adults that are like checking in.

Oh, they're real adults.

Like, oh, I see you on your computer. How's it going? Yes. You know, that kind of thing.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Like, um, like Proctors. Is that kind of like that? So, um, anyway, the fields that they do their real-life, uh, workshops are robotics, public speaking, financial literacy, entrepreneurship. Um, so anyway, Bill Ackman is a huge proponent of this. Reid Hoffman, he co-founded LinkedIn. He's also very interested in this.

Um, so this is like the Derek Zoolander School of— for kids that can't read good.

There goes—

they want to do other things good too, because they do the entrepreneurship thing in I'll just give you a jumping off point. Does this give you the ick or is this something that you're like, oof, I should probably get my kid in this like AI-powered job and teach them about robotics?

Funny that you should mention robotics. Both of my daughters did robotics this year.

Oh, okay.

And we were very excited about it. I love, like, I love the idea of practical education, you know, not just like trade, not trade school exactly, but let's make ourselves really employable.

Yeah.

So part of that's exciting. The AI part I'm not thrilled about, but I do feel like, I mean, that's the reality. This is all of our search now on Google is AI.

Yeah.

All of our, all of us are constantly using it all the time. It is a, it is a quicker way to access and summarize information and we have more and more information available to us. So we have, we have to use it.

So yeah, I like the idea of making my kids AI literate. But I think there's something you're missing out when you don't have a teacher in a classroom setting. I think there's a certain level of collaboration you're missing. And we all have experiences with teachers who in one way or another changed our lives. And we all have teachers to this day that you can remember when you were 7 years old being inspired by a teacher, being encouraged by them, having that deep relationship where they're almost like another parent to you in a way. And I think you miss, you miss out on that when you're, when you're outsourcing that to technology. Now, there are a lot of things that the ultra-wealthy, which I'm kind of a little offended that you assume that John and I are not billionaire dads. You just say, what would you do? Yeah, but they're all— anytime they start doing things with their kids, you should start thinking, hmm, like that should tell you something. They have all the resources in the world and they're able to do things and provide for things for their kids. Um, so I love the idea of broadening their horizons when it comes to teaching them real-life skills that will be applicable, and the public speaking stuff is cool, and the, you know, the robotics and the coding and all of that.

I'm down for that. Not down for the AI tutors replacing teachers.

You are placing a bet when you follow what the billionaires do, and sometimes they do things that may not be the best even just for your soul, too.

I have some experience with classical education. As, as an educator and then seeing my, my, both of my kids were at some points in classical schools. So in some ways I'm like retro. There's elements of that that I really love for education. And I do think almost one-on-one tutorials, if you can possibly find the right people to do that, there's a reason that's always been the go-to throughout all of history for the most educated people. You know, if you can do that, that's great. And that is a human being Yeah, that hopefully inspires you or challenge you or whatever. It's not AI, but absolutely it's going to be supplemented now by technology. It's got to be.

Yeah.

Education.

The thing that jumps out to me about this is that it's a kid on a computer by themself. They're not just missing out on the teacher, they're missing out on the peer interaction that you get with learning together. That to me, that was the thing that I don't know. I mean, it is scary when you see the ultra-wealthy doing things and you think, shoot, you know, I don't want to set my child up to be behind by not doing what they're doing.

Yeah.

But you have to make—

and I'm sure it improves their test scores. I'm sure that's the case. But what are the— what are the trade-offs?

Yeah. All right. Last question. What is your advice to new dads or soon— or dads-to-be soon?

Jon's a veteran dad. You've got to start.

Uh, I have too much advice. Um, I would say, so selflessness, this is a complicated theme. One of the things my dad modeled for me was he was very selfless in so many ways as a father, and I want to emulate that. But I think that there is, we've seen this balance particularly, I mean, it's men and women. Women have a harder time with this probably too, where you make your kids the center of your world. And they're, they're— it becomes unhealthy. Or you project onto them— there's almost like a narcissism that can— you can project onto your kids something that's actually unhealthy. So the balance of selflessness versus maintaining your own life, maintaining things that your kids are ultimately going to respect about you that is outside of them, that is larger than— not larger than them, but an identity boundary. Yeah, identity boundaries. And, and, um, And that it's not the me time thing. It's like being a complete human being, you know? And I think a lot of, there are parents that can go either direction. They could be negligent or they can be these utterly indulgent or obsessed parents. Do not become one of the obsessed parents, you know?

You can be selfless, you can do all those things, but you can also maintain your own boundaries and your own life. And that's super important for their health.

I would say don't make yourself a martyr. It can be tempting when you're having to sacrifice things as a parent to get this feeling of, oh, poor me, and I— all the things I'm giving up and the things I could be doing. Don't make yourself a martyr. Just leads to bitterness. I think view those things as an opportunity to lay yourself down, and it's a refining process, and allow it to refine you. The big thing Don't look to earthly examples for the best example of what a father is. Look to the perfect Father. Look to God the Father as the pinnacle of what it actually means to be a father. Um, you will be let down by earthly human beings. You will always be let down by them no matter how great they are. And so I would say try to emulate the way that God the Father, uh, acts towards us, his children. Tangibly, I always tell other dads, my kids are 2 and a half and 4 months old. I'm not going to pretend to be this wise old martyr. Keep a journal. Take lots of pictures. I already enjoy going back and looking at— I've— not to brag, I write both of my sons a letter each month and I don't give it to them.

Obviously they couldn't read it, but I'm going to give it to them when they're 18. So we have one letter a month for each kid, and I go back and I read like the letter from when my son was a couple months old, and there's stuff that I've already forgotten. It's like, oh, I forgot he was doing this when he was 3 months old, and I love that. Um, and then the final thing, the best advice I got, just be present. Um, there's this cheesy podcast clip I saw where a guy was saying like, when you're 80 years old, you're gonna look back on the worst night of parenthood and wish that you could do it all over again, or wish you would give anything when you're 80 to go back and have one night where your kid is screaming at 2 in the morning and you do anything to be back in that one moment just for one night. And so for some reason, that really resonated with me. And when, when I'm having bad nights where my sons won't go down or something, or they puke on me or poop on me, I just think, I'm going to be an old man one day.

I won't have little kids who need me. And I want to enjoy that right now. So that's the advice of a dad who's been a dad for 2 and a half years, which I'm sure people are looking at funny.

Being needed. I know everyone here relates to this. Being needed. There's times you can resent that. You step back for a second and go, how great, how great is it to be needed? You know, it's a wonderful feeling.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, gentlemen, happy Father's Day. So proud to have such great dads on this show and Viewers, to you dads out there, happy Father's Day, and thanks for, thanks for watching today.